Children of the Shadows: By Any Other Name
by Kara
Summary: Part of the


By Any Other Name  
By Kara (anyalindir@aol.com)  
  
Disclaimer: I lied. This all really does belong to me. I am the person behind the name of Cameron and Eglee. That's why this is called fanfiction.  
Spoilers: None, pre-series  
Rating: G  
Summary: Part of "Children of the Shadows"-A child by any other name than a barcode learns that she's human.  
  
2004  
  
X-5452 sat on her chair, the same way the Colonel had showed her, arms stretched out on the table and hands balled into fists. She squeezed her fist experimentally, feeling the muscles inside her arms stretch. Muscles. Muscle started with M, and that was what made her arm move and punch and block. Man started with M, and Man was what the Colonel was as he flashed the slides at them on the screen. Slides. Screen. S. All letters X-5452 had known for a year now.  
  
"D. Duty." Her voice repeated the words as they flashed on the screen. The words went fast, but she had no problems reading them. Sometimes the doctors did. She didn't know why the doctors couldn't read as fast as she and the other X-5s could. Even the Colonel seemed slow sometimes. Slow. S. The Colonel couldn't keep up with them when they ran outside or down the corridors either. X-5656, one of the oldest, said that she thought the Colonel got hurt a long time ago, but not an outside hurt. An inside hurt. X-5656 always knew stuff like that, about the doctors and the watchers and the specialists. X-5656 could always tell which watcher wouldn't yell at them for throwing soap at each other in the showers at night, and remembered which doctor blew on your cut before they put iodine on it to disinfect it.   
  
"O. Objective." The slides were boring. But the Colonel made them look at the slides and repeat the words every day at lessons, just so that they didn't forget. Their Duty, D, was never to forget (F) the Objective (O). X-5452 wasn't really sure what an objective was yet, but she knew it was important. She knew it had something to do with why they sat at the tables every day with their arms stretched out, fists clenched so that they'd pay attention. X-5683 got hit once, because he fell asleep. They didn't fall asleep anymore. Not at lessons.  
  
"C. Commander." X-5599 shouted that extra loud, but the Colonel didn't yell at him the way he yelled at X-5338 sometimes. X-5452 thought that X-5599 was the Colonel's favorite sometimes, because he always sat at the front in lessons, and led their squadron (S) through the corridors. Sometimes, X-5599 even got to lead exercises (E) in the morning.   
  
"B. Brother." X-5599 was her big brother. That's what the Colonel said. In a squadron, all soldiers had to act like they were one unit, a family (F). X-5452 wasn't sure what a family was, but she thought sometimes that it was just another word for squadron, a group of people that you worked with and ate with and carried out the Objective with. It was your duty to watch over your family. Your duty was to your squadron. Brothers were like X-5599 and X-5231. Sisters, S, were like X-5338 and X-5734. X-5452 knew that there was some difference (D) between sisters and brothers, but none of them could figure it out yet. And since the X-5s weren't allowed to ask questions, none of the doctors or watchers or specialists would tell them either.  
  
The Colonel was passing out papers, which meant reading again. X-5452 loved words, because they were a puzzle, and it meant she had to figure them out. They were like the locks that they sometimes had to open in afternoon training, or the one on the door to their barracks (B) that X-5822 picked at night when he didn't want to sleep. The Colonel always let the X-5 who read the papers fastest lead afternoon training. Sometimes, the X-5 even got to be first in line in the mess hall. On the paper, there were a lot of paragraphs about someone called a max. This max was a soldier who was hurt behind enemy lines. The Enemy (E) were bad. The Enemy lived in the basement, with the nomalies. X-5452 wasn't sure what a nomaly was, but she knew it was a bad thing, something the doctors didn't talk about in front of the X-5s. But sometimes, it seemed like the doctors didn't know how good the X-5s could hear, so they learned things they weren't supposed to.  
  
The max was wounded. His arm was broken. X-5452 knew what it was like to have a broken arm. She broke her arm only two months before, falling out of a tree in afternoon training when they were playing Seek and Destroy. X-5656 hadn't meant to knock her out of the tree and scare the prey (P) underneath them, but she did, and the Colonel got mad at them both. But that wasn't something that X-5452 liked to remember.  
  
The max was a very brave soldier. He was really good at Stealth and Sneaking (S) too. The Colonel probably would have let him be first in line. When the max got back to the rondayvoo spoint, his Commander clapped him on the back and said, "You did a good job, soldier. Your family is proud of you, Lt. Max Abrams."  
  
X-5452 blinked at the paper. Lieutenant was a Rank, just like Colonel was. But if Lieutenant was his rank, then what was Max Abrams? Maybe a max wasn't another kind of man. Maybe…  
  
"X-5452, lessons are over!"  
  
She shook her head. Max. Max. What was a Max? Was a Max like Lydecker, which was what some of the guards called the Colonel sometimes? X-5452 had always thought that Lydecker was just another title, like the Colonel. The Colonel didn't have numbers because he wasn't an X-5. Because he was a man, and because he was a grow-up, he didn't have to use his numbers anymore. But maybe Lydecker meant more than that…like Dr. Santos was a Santos, and one of the watches was called a Liz…  
  
"X-5452, it's time for bed. Did you hear me, soldier?" X-5452 looked around and finally noticed that her brothers and sisters were standing by the doorway, already in their lines. She was in trouble now.  
  
"Lay off, Kit. She's just a kid," X-5452 heard another one of the guards say. The Colonel had already left the lesson, meaning it was up to the guards to take the X-5s back to their barracks.  
  
Kit. Was Kit like Lydecker and Liz and Max? Why didn't anyone else have numbers? Why didn't anyone else have a barcode on the back of their neck?  
  
"X-5452, I mean it!" The guard was getting angry, his eyes bulging the way the Colonel's did sometimes before he hit one of them.   
  
"Kit, remember what Deck said about provoking them…" the guard's brother said.  
  
"No names, remember, soldier? We don't have names here," Kit the Guard hissed back. Kit. Kit, the guard. Kit. That wasn't his title. That was who he was. His name.  
  
"Max! Not X-5452. Max!" She wanted a name. If a guard had a name, and the Colonel had a name, and watchers and doctors had names, then she should have one too. "Max," she repeated stubbornly. Max, the brave soldier who never forgot the Objective, and who was always first in line.  
  
"X-5452!"  
  
Max crossed her arms over her chest, glaring up at the guard. She could hear her brothers and sisters gasp. You didn't defy the guards. That wasn't done here. If you defied the guards, then the Colonel threw you downstairs with the nomalies. "Max," she said again. "My name is Max."  
  
She felt herself get yanked by X-5599. "Sorry, sir. We apologize, sir," her brother said, saluting the guard. "March, soldier," he muttered in her ear, poking her back. But Max saw the look in X-5599's eyes. He wasn't mad at her. He was scared. But he looked the same way that the Commander had in the story too.  
  
When they were back in their barracks, Max's brothers and sisters didn't lie down on their pallets (P) the way they usually did. X-5338 wrapped her arms around Max's neck and laughed. "You made them mad!"  
  
"Coulda hurt you," X-5599 muttered. Max could see anger in his blue eyes still, and fear. "Guards like hurting us. Soldiers don't talk back, X-5452."  
  
"Max," she said again, glaring up at X-5599. "My name is Max. X-5452 is my number."  
  
X-5656's dark eyes widened. "Names. Like the Colonel always calls the Cook Ben. And Johnny, on the paper in lessons yesterday."  
  
"Jondy?" X-5338's head looked up from where she sat with Max. Max saw a smile on her sister's face. "Jondy," she said carefully. "Jondy is my name."  
  
X-5734 sat down next to Jondy. "A watcher said that brin meant big. I want to be big, not small. Brin."  
  
"Brin," Max said, trying it out. Her sister looked up, hearing the name. Her name. Brin's name.  
  
"Ben," one of her brothers said, his fingers tracing the letters in the air. "B-E-N. Ben." His spotted face smiled.  
  
One by one, Max heard her brothers and sisters trying out sounds they'd heard, names they'd stored in their memory along with words like Duty and Objective. Strong words. Important words. Finally, only one was left, X-5599, his chin stuck out and arms still crossed over his chest.  
  
"You need a name," Max said. "A good name, for the biggest. Biggest brother." Biggest Brother. B.  
  
"They could've hurt you," X-5599 said, his lower lip quivering slightly. "They could've hurt you." His blue eyes didn't look brave, like they usually did. "They could've hurt you, Max."  
  
Biggest Brothers shouldn't be scared. X-5599 needed a strong name, to make him strong, and to keep him brave. He was her favorite brother, though Max never told anyone else that. Not even Jondy, and Jondy was her favorite sister. Maybe a name that sounded like hers, to show him how much he was her family, and her Duty, and her Objective.  
  
"Zack," she said finally, touching his chest. "Zack." Then she pointed back to herself, so that he could hear the secret. "Max. Zack."  
  
Zack's mouth twitched slightly, and he unfolded his arms. "Zack." He tried it out, looking like he was trying not to smile. "Zack." Before the lines on his forehead disappeared though, Zack made the signal that meant "come here and listen." One by one, Max could hear her brothers and sisters drop to the ground at his feet.  
  
"In here, we have names, but outside, we have numbers. In meals, we have numbers. In training we have numbers. In lessons, we have numbers-the numbers the Colonel gave us." His blue eyes looked serious, the same way the Colonel's did when he was talking about important words. "Secret names. The duty is keep them secret. So no brothers and sisters get hurt."  
  
Max nodded. "Strong words. Our strong words, and no one else's."  
  
"The Duty?" Zack asked, pointing to the word painted on the wall.  
  
"Keep the secret!" her brothers and sisters shouted back, in one voice, just like the Colonel taught them.  
  
"And outside?"  
  
"Only numbers," Jondy piped up.  
  
Zack nodded. "We're barcodes. Remember."  
  
The door opened, and a guard came in to flip out the light. "Lights out, X-5s."  
  
"Sir, yessir!" Max watched as her brothers and sisters sprung to attention and walked obediently to their pallets. They were good soldiers, just like the Colonel had taught them.   
  
When the lights went out, Max could hear the shuffle of blankets as Jondy scooted her pallet next to Max's. "Max," her sister whispered, reaching out a hand.  
  
She took Jondy's hand, squeezing it. "Jondy," she whispered back. There was a strange feeling in her stomach, not like the one before she got the shakes, but something different. Something that made her feel brave and strong, just like the soldier in the story. "Max," she said softly. "X-5452."   
  
"Maxie," Jondy said, and giggled. "Little sister Maxie."  
  
Max stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, the feeling of warmth in her stomach growing. "My name is Max," she said to the ceiling. "Max." It was a good name. A strong word, to keep her brave and her family saf  



End file.
